How Secondhand Smoke Is Killing You (Part 1: Smoking)
As a mom, the most important person in my life is my baby. And as any mom, I want to protect him from any harm. One of the biggest dangers out there that’s hard to protect him from is secondhand smoke.
Secondhand smoke is everywhere. Stepping outside of the Mall people are standing there, smoking. If you go to a restaurant, people are outside smoking. Walking past or behind someone who is smoking you become victim to secondhand smoke.
Every time I’m out with my baby I do anything to avoid him inhaling secondhand smoke. A lot of people don’t even think about it. But little smoke here and little smoke there suddenly becomes a lot of secondhand smoke for a baby.
Secondhand Smoke and its Effects
Smoking tobacco is dangerous to your health. New research proves that cigarettes are not just harmful to smokers but also harmful to people around smokers. Especially children and fetuses in the womb of a pregnant woman. What is even worse for a fetus is a smoking mother.
Secondhand smoke is the smoke that comes from the exhalation of a smoker. This type of smoking is also known as passive smoking, accidental smoking, environmental tobacco smoking (ETS), and involuntary smoking.
It is on record that over 53,000 people, most of whom are children. Dies from secondhand smoke every year. Aside from that, over 443,000 adults die of direct smoking.
Secondhand smoking involves inhaling the over 4,000 chemicals that are combined in cigarettes. Out of which 52 of them have a high possibility of causing cancers.
Environmental tobacco smoke is dirtier than direct smoke. If you expose a person to equal amounts of direct smoking and indirect smoking. The indirect smoke will have much more adverse effects because every cigarette has a filter at the mouth part. This filters away some of these dangerous chemicals. The person who inhales the smoke indirectly from the lit end has no advantage of the filter and inhales all the chemicals.
Other statistics say that in a single year. Secondhand smoke constitutes more than 3,000 deaths from lung cancer in nonsmokers over 35 years old. It is responsible for over 37,000 deaths that are related to or directly linked to heart diseases. Even worse. A nonsmoking worker has a 34% higher risk of lung cancer due to inhalation of environmental tobacco right at their workplace.
The majority of those affected by Secondhand Smoke
Are children and their exposure mainly comes from a parent or an adult who smokes at home. Studies have shown that secondhand smoke is the singular most dangerous indoor air pollutant. The children that live in those homes tend to be sicker than average. Developing different lung infections (especially pneumonia) exhibit more wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath, and easily develop inexplicable ear infections.
The effects of secondhand smoke can be mild, severe, or even fatal. Like the cases of loss of life due to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in newborn babies.
Secondhand smoke is heavily linked to asthma. In recent times it has been implicated in the onset of (induced) asthma. Unnecessary prolonged asthma attacks and asthma triggered by the slightest presence of tobacco.
Lastly, Secondhand smoke also affects babies in the womb. Whose mothers are either smokers or are overexposed to secondhand smoking. If a woman smokes daily during pregnancy, there are about 6,073 places where the fetus’s DNA can be impacted badly. Compared to the DNA of nonsmokers’ infants.
Published research in the American Journal of Psychiatry a few years back suggests. Professor Brown and his colleagues managed to prove that the offspring of mothers who smoked a lot during their pregnancy. Have an increased risk of bipolar disorder because it affects the growth of the baby’s brain. It was also discovered that the more women were exposed to nicotine. The greater the chance that their children will be victims of severe mental illness. A minimum 38% increase in the possibility of schizophrenia has been associated with very high nicotine exposure as shown by the mother’s blood.
This post is not to cause panic
Instead, it is to raise awareness of the risks one takes with their health and the health of their loved ones.
Secondhand smoke part 1/2
Read more about Thirdhand smoke.
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